Saturn and Mars, the Serpent's Menace

The tradition gives Unukalhai the nature of Saturn with Mars, one of the more malefic pairings, and Robson reads it for misfortune, accidents, chronic disease and, in the lurid manner of the older sources, danger by poison, the serpent supplying the theme. This is a delineation to treat with the standard caution: the combination of the two malefics is a schematic assignment, and the catalogue of specific disasters is late compilation, not observation. The star's dependable identity is as the bright orange giant marking the neck of the one constellation that a second figure cuts in half.

The specific pairing of chronic disease with a Saturn-Mars star follows the standard medical-astrological logic of the older tradition: Saturn was read for what is prolonged, wasting or cold in its nature, Mars for what is acute, inflamed or violent, and a star combining both was accordingly read as prone to illnesses that begin suddenly and then settle into something lasting, a piece of internally consistent theory rather than an arbitrary label. No source earlier than the compiling tradition assigns Unukalhai its specific chronic-disease delineation, and as with several of the Saturn-Mars stars in this catalogue, the reading should be read as a schematic nineteenth or twentieth century addition.